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I was hanging out with a friend last night who isn’t really into Smith Street – “too ocka and shouty” was her general complaint – but we usually like the same stuff, so she asked me to make a mix for her to check out.

Driving home I was thinking about what songs to put in there, and I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore was high on the list. I think anyone who’s battled the black dog and won (even if only temporarily) can probably relate to the sentiment of this song. It always makes me smile when I hear it and it goes off live.

Also the little lead riff that comes in during the bridge reminds of a classical song that I just can’t put my finger on – I think it’s the song usually played on the church bells at weddings? 100 music genius points to anyone who can name that song for me!

After mentioning Strapping Young Ladin yesterday’s post, I figured they deserved today’s song of the day. They’re one of my favourite metal bands of all time, and while i’m not religious, Devin Townsend is probably the closest thing I have to a personal saviour.

I think everyone has a song that represents adolescence, and all the confusing, difficult and awkward shit that inevitably comes with being a teenager. For me, it’s Detox. “This is only high school bullshit” became my mantra when I was 15, and to this day I still find it popping up in my mind when I start to lose my shit.

I first heard about Cop Shoot Cop when Strapping Young Lad covered a song of theirs called Room 429. Their stuff was really hard to find back in the day, but I eventually managed to track some down, and Any Day Now was one of the first songs I heard.

Aside from the having great lyrics (One of these days I’ll be a spectator in an audience of whores), and that oh-so tasty bass riff, I like to imagine the song is being sung by William ‘D-Fens’ Foster from Falling Down.

I’ve been binge watching The Walking Dead to catch up before the new season starts. If you follow this blog you may remember me saying I hated it, but I decided to give it a second chance after a few people told me it gets better. So I did, and about halfway through Season 3 I finally got into it.

Which leads me to today’s Song Of The Day. While watching The Walking Dead, I kept hearing this background music that reminded me of something else.I couldn’t pinpoint what song exactly and it was driving me mental. Today, I finally realised it was A Warm Place byNine Inch Nails:

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One of the things I love most about this song is that it represents the capability an artist has to defy expectations and veer off in another direction entirely. When I first heard The Downward Spiral, I remember how much this song stood out, while still fitting perfectly within the narrative of the album.

It can be scary to do that as an artist, particularly if you’re already pinned to a specific genre, as Reznor was with Industrial music. Considering he went on to win an Oscar nearly two decades later for his work on The Social Network score, this song always reminds me of why it’s important to take a chance and follow your artistic instincts – even if you risk alienating your existing audience.

High Tension are my favourite Australian band, and I had the pleasure of seeing them play live supporting Cancer Bats a few weeks ago. Their live shows are super-fun and it’s hard not to end up with a big smile on your facing watching the band do their thing.

Sadly they didn’t play this song, which is one of my faves off their most recent album Bully, but I just got my tickets to Laneway so i’m hoping ‘Take Control’ has worked its way in to the set-list by then.

A few months back, my friend Chrissie Hall asked me to create a soundscape for an exhibition she was working on. The underlying concept was to explore the five frequencies of human brain waves (Beta, Alpha, Theta, Gamma and Delta).

The exhibition ran for a month at Kind of Gallery in St. Leonards, and also got a short run atCreate or Diein Marrickville. There’s a post over on the XRay Doll blog about the exhibition, including some pictures from opening night here. We also got to make a sensor-activated ‘talking brain’ which was really cool (and somewhat creepy).

I designed the soundscape in 5 acts, each representing a different brainwave, and it was installed as an audio loop for the duration of the exhibition. I released it under my alter ego/art project name BI0MECHANICAL, and finally chucked it up on soundcloud. Best listened to in altered state: